


Going Up the Rabbit Hole Can Be Weirder than Down It

by Rynfinity



Series: The March of the Damned [18]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Human, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Prostitution, Self-Harm, Sibling Incest, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-24 14:43:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2585126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynfinity/pseuds/Rynfinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It may not be just Mac Loki’s talking about anymore.</p><p> </p><p>This is a direct sequel to <i>Of Neither Mice nor Men</i> and will make the most sense read after its predecessors. </p><p>This story takes place in the same AU and timeframe as <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1654217/chapters/3508676">Choices</a> from <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/104813">Out of the Mouths of Babes</a>; unlike the Babes stories, this one is told from Loki's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Making up your mind isn't easy; admitting it is harder still.

“Mac is almost old enough to go to a forever home,” Loki tries out, carefully, and if he squints he can almost convince himself he’s only saying any of this to see if Thor will take the bait. Because there most certainly _is_ bait involved, even if he’s lost sight of what it might _be_ exactly, or of what he wants to do once he’s hooked his brother. “In fact, he could technically go now,” he adds, which is true enough. “We’ve just opted to keep him as long as possible, since he got off to such a rough start in life.”

And then he abruptly remembers what he’s actually doing this.

The whole speech needs to seem utterly natural and honest, as far from _staged_ as possible. Ultimately, as much as Loki might like to pretend otherwise, he knows Thor really isn't the easy mark he likes to accuse his brother of being.

Thor is pretty goddamned sharp, really, and this of all times it's important as fuck to be convincing.

Except maybe that’s the wrong approach, since he can’t even admit to himself what he wants in terms of outcome?

Finding the truth and then subverting it used to be so easy.

Loki gives the pan a quick stir. “Plus, when he does go," he continues, and this part is considerably easier to deliver without tons of acting, "poor Marci will miss him terribly," _and if he doesn't go to us,_ Loki silently continues, _I don't know if I can survive_. He can't say that, of course, so he doesn't.

In fact, he says nothing. He’s starting to realize he’s probably manipulated this more than enough already.

~

Somewhere along the way it became critically important for Thor to think this whole business – all this shit about getting a kitten - was his own idea. As ridiculous as it sounds, Loki knows this with the pure, devastating certainty that characterizes his wildest- well, you know.

He isn't the least bit sure _how or why_ , exactly (or broadly, for that matter), it's so important; just that it is. It _is._ He _knows_. He does.

So, yes, no question about it; he’s still plenty _crazy_.

~

Thor's knife scrapes and thuds against the cutting board. The pile of neatly chopped vegetables grows and grows as the endless seconds tick by.

The longer his brother is silent, the more Loki can feel both his heart and his thoughts racing.

He tries holding his breath and willing himself to calm down. He even tries thinking of cutting and scars.

It doesn't help. None of it. Not at all.

About the time Loki's all but positive he's going explode and splatter bits of his insides all over the kitchen - either that or seize up, shudder dramatically, and fall over dead - Thor takes a couple of long, loud breaths. “Do you want to adopt him, Loki," his brother asks hesitantly.

It's simultaneously everything he’s ever wanted and the most terrifying thing he's ever heard. “I-," Loki starts and then can’t continue. "I’m not sure,” he finally manages to spit out, which is not what he means at all. “Well, more to the point," he tries again, grasping in vain for the last shreds of his composure. "I’m not sure _you’re_ sure, and I- I- well, I really need you to be.”

He does, Loki knows. More than anything. He may indeed have scrambled a long way up the rough, sloping walls of the pit, but his own grip on life is still far too tenuous to be trusted. Thor is, sad though it may be to say, far more- far more stable. Dependable. Trustworthy.

Not that his brother is short on faults, some of which could be quite unpleasant for a kitten, but Thor isn’t the one who’s going to overdose and leave the animals with nothing to eat but his own rotting-… _stop_ , he orders himself. _Just fucking stop_.

Thor pulls in another noisy breath. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot and-,” he says, launching into a speech he’s clearly been preparing, and then what Loki actually said must sink in. “Wait," Thor demands. "What do you mean, baby?”

Loki gives the skillet of shrimp his undivided attention. “Go ahead and finish what you were going to say first,” he tells his brother when Thor waits – patiently, too patiently given the subject matter – for him to respond.

“Loki,” Thor protests ( _good_ ; all that misguided patience is an act, then). He thinks the better of whatever he was going to say and just sighs. “I’m scared about it,” he admits instead. “I’ve never had a pet before, something that had to depend on me to stay alive" – it probably shouldn’t, but _that_ fucking hurts, so much so that Loki shakes the pan too sharply and nearly shoots the shrimp right out onto the cooktop… because where the fuck does-… _stop_ , he has to tell himself again - "but I _do_ want to adopt him.”

Which is good, perfect even, except for how Thor has to ruin everything by going and tacking on “if you want to, of course."

_Jesus fuck_. Loki cannot be the one to make this decision. He just. Fucking. Can't. _Help me out here_ , he thinks, desperately (but of course he can’t actually swallow his pride - if it’s even pride that’s stopping him - and ask for that). He’s mentally paralyzed. “Remember,” he insists, trying to get things back on track even though he’s not sure he _does_ remember where he was going with the whole conversation anymore, “ _forever home_. You can’t just give him back if you change your mind.” 

It may not be just Mac he’s talking about anymore.

Thor's warm hand lands - softly, gently - on Loki's shoulder. “I realize that," his brother assures him. "I get that part, I do."

_Sure you do_ , Loki mocks inside his own head but doesn't say aloud. “It’s really important,” he points out instead. His voice is hard, sharper than he might mean it to be. “Because like it or not I may not always be- be well enough to take care of an animal."

Okay, _that’s_ the heart of it. That's the ugly, shitty truth right there.

"I need to know for absolute certain that, if I’m not, you will do it for me.” He isn’t sure he’s up to hearing the answer, but there’s really no alternative. None. “Otherwise, it’s not right for me to adopt one. Not right for me, not fair to you. Or to Mac.” He’s crying now, despite his best efforts not to, and that in turn makes him irrationally angry. With himself and with Thor.

With the whole fucking universe.

His brother steps right up behind him, dangerously close, and pulls Loki back into a powerful hug. The tears start to come in earnest, and they probably won’t be stopping any time soon. “I don’t like to think like that, baby,” Thor reminds him as the spatula he’s been using to stir the shrimp slips from his grasp and falls loudly to the floor. “I want you to be okay, always.”

Loki shifts and struggles, trying uselessly to free himself. “But if I’m not,” he stresses, “I have to know I can depend on you to take good care of Mac.”

After hesitating just long enough to forestall any accusations Loki might have made about _acting without thinking_ , which should be reassuring but is further annoying instead, Thor sighs. “I’ll do the very best I can,” he says, somehow managing to sound both nauseatingly sincere and just this side of _pretty fucking irritated_.

That last part probably isn’t surprising, considering how hard Loki’s been pushing every goddamned button within reach.

Time for a new approach, then, before this turns into something he knows he can’t handle. Loki stops trying to free himself, at least for now, and snuffles wetly. “I need to think about it some, okay,” he pleads. His head is a mess. He’s both absolutely positive what he wants and unable to make a decision all at the same time. 

“Okay,” Thor concedes, sadly. He plants a soft kiss on Loki’s cheek, just along the ridge of one cheekbone. “Maybe we should take Marci too,” he suggests, “so neither of them has to be lonely.”

_That’s_ not playing fair. Not at all. In fact it’s flat-out _cheating_ , something he himself would do, and that irks Loki far more than it ought to. “The shrimp are going to burn,” he huffs, elbowing his brother in the ribs.

This time, Thor actually lets him go.

Loki watches his brother out of the corner of his eye as Thor goes back to chopping vegetables. His brother is smiling, just a little.

Try as he might, Loki can’t decide if what just happens constitutes winning or losing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki tries to avoid sorting things through, but somehow manages to anyway.

"Did it turn into a fight," Dr. Riley asks.

Loki is horrifically wiggly today, to the point that he’s driving _himself_ bonkers. He's been that way since he got out of bed - before that, really, but he'd done his best to keep still so he wouldn't prematurely awaken his brother. Whatever started last night, with his panic over what to do about Mac... it for sure hasn't left him. Or he hasn't left it. Whichever it's going to end up being. At least he hopes it's going to- well, to end up somehow. And sooner would be a whole lot nicer than later, come to-.

"Loki?"

Oh, right, Dr. Riley. "Sorry," he tells her. "I'm having trouble focusing."

"I've noticed," she interjects, drily. "Is this _busy brain_ distracted or _meds are screwed up_ distracted," she asks. "Are you able to tell?"

He stops a moment and really thinks about her question. "I haven't changed anything with my medication," he says. "And I didn't just start a fresh refill." Loki ticks down his mental checklist, pleased to have something useful for his brain to do. "I haven't been ill, and I haven't been working out more or less than usual." He shrugs. "Busy brain, I guess. Lots to adjust to?"

She nods. "True enough. I'd like you to get blood drawn just in case, though."

_Shit._ "I'm not using," he swears, instantly. "Not at all." The very idea is so upsetting his hands start shaking. "I would tell you," I promise I would."

She waves her hands _stop_. "No, sorry, nothing like that. I just want you to get some routine labs done, to make sure nothing weird is going on medically. I didn't mean to imply I don't trust you."

Loki makes a disgusted little sound through his nose as he struggles to get himself back under something loosely resembling control. "Why _would_ you trust me? No one does."

Dr. Riley sighs. Loki shrugs a small apology. "As fascinating as debating that particular topic endlessly may be," she says flatly, but her eyes are almost smiling and he knows she isn't actually pissed at him, "I'd rather go back to my original question." She smiles outright. "Especially considering how thoroughly you're avoiding giving me an answer."

"I-," Loki starts to protest, but then shuts his mouth. She's probably right. He takes a deep breath. Okay, not probably; is. "No, there wasn't a fight. We finished making dinner and ate it. It was good. Dinner, I mean," he clarifies. The food had been delicious; the atmosphere, though, had hovered on the border between _strained_ and _very strained_. That and, like now, he'd been so wound up he could hardly see straight.

"But," she prompts. Not like he didn't know _that_ was coming. Still, he doesn’t have to like it.

He shifts in his seat. "But nothing," he says. "I waited until Thor dozed off on the couch and then I snuck off into the shower and- well, I masturbated, if you must know. To the thought of my brother holding me so tight I could barely breathe and not letting me get away no matter how hard I struggled. Sick, huh?"

"That's kind of hard to say," she says. "How did-."

"Yeah, yeah... how did _I_ feel about it," he cuts in. Both his feet are jiggling. "I felt like it was sick." He shrugs, defiant this time. "But I wanted it to be. And yes, I got off, in case you're wondering," he adds, to see how she'll react. "I shot my load all over the tile."

She, of course, really doesn't react at all. Just like she hasn’t the million previous times he’s said something disgusting. "I had little doubt," she tells him, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth, "but thanks for being thorough."

Loki lets his head loll to one side, so he's mostly looking at the chair arm. "Why am I trying so hard to be shocking," he asks the chair. Or maybe the carpet beneath it. "I thought I was past that."

"Life is cyclic," Dr. Riley reminds him. "When you're under a lot of pressure and feeling overwhelmed, some of your old coping mechanisms will doubtless resurface. That's to be expected," she continues, and she's right; he does know this stuff. "It's not a sign of trouble, not on its own."

He nods, his hair squeaking a little against the leather. "It's just a reminder to check in with myself and see what I might be overlooking," he parrots, "especially if there's no clear explanation. Like now."

Out of the corner of one eye - the eye closest to her, and farthest from the relative safely of the chair – Loki can see she's giving him one of _those looks_. The ones she makes when she’s calling _bullshit_. "You expect me to believe you have no idea what's wrong," she asks, “do you?” For a moment Dr. Riley - despite how drastically different he knows she really is, in almost so many ways - could be his mother. Frigga. His breath hitches.

"You don't mean- but I'm just thinking about taking home a fucking _kitten_ ," he huffs, because it's the only thing she could possibly be meaning. "People do that every freaking day."

"Some of them with a lot less thought than they ought to give doing so, no," she probes, and of course she is right (yet again). That's why shelters like the one where he met Mac exist to begin with.

"People are stupid," he says, sidestepping her question.

"And you're not," she points out. "Loki, this really is a big deal on so many levels. It is. The way you’re reacting to it is not something you need to beat yourself up over."

He rolls his head slowly back up the cushion and looks her in the face again. She looks a little sad and not at all smug. As best he can tell, which he’d like to think is _pretty accurately_ , she's not playing him.

He swallows. "Mac is so- he's vibrant and young and alive. I don't want to crush that spirit out of him. And I don't want to saddle Thor with a pet he doesn't want, either."

Her expression shifts; now she's finally concerned. "You don't think Thor wants him?"

Loki shrugs, even though he knows he's being unfair. It’s abundantly clear Thor wants that kitten. "He says he does," he tells her, which is close enough to the truth for it to reach out and burn him, "but I'm not sure he knows what he's in for. What if a few weeks from now he changes his mind? You know, when Mac starts getting into trouble and isn't just a shiny new ball of cute anymore?"

And once again, much like last night, he's no longer sure it's really Mac they're discussing.

Dr. Riley frowns at him. "Not to minimize Thor's own issues," she starts off, "because I have by no means forgotten them and I do see how they could be concerning to you here, but Loki?" She waits until she's sure she has his full attention, which she actually does now. Has for a while, come to think of it. "Your brother really doesn't seem the sort to up and leave when things get a little challenging.”

_Wow._

“Does he," she prods when Loki sits there utterly speechless.

"No," he finally manages in a tiny little voice. She's right again, but they've wandered into one of his deepest pools of worry. One of the few he can still drown in.

Dr. Riley studies him silently until he has to look away. Maybe she keeps right on studying him after that, actually. "This isn't just about Mac, is it," she asks.

Loki shakes his head. His throat is too tight for actual answers.

"Not that I think Thor will leave you," she reassures him, "because I see no sign of that, but you do have all of us. You know that, right? Everyone in this place is here for you. We’ ll always help you out if you need it."

He clears his throat. "And how will you do that," he rasps, because after all he _isn't stupid_ , "if I'm not able to ask for help?"

"You just have to find your way to us," she says. "We'll know."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trouble comes calling.

Everything is going- well, really. He and Thor haven’t been fighting, either covertly or out in the open. Each time they gingerly tiptoe around the topic, adopting Mac (and Marci too; the minute Thor’d mentioned it, there was simply no other way to proceed) seems a little closer to becoming a reality. Loki knows he speaks for both of them when he says they’re still both a little nervous about cat parenthood, but it’s reasonable, rational concern rather than _crazy talk_ these days.

Working at the shelter has quickly gone from stressful, frightening challenge to comforting routine. Sif and Steve are still a thing; Steve still seems fine with how they roll here at Casa Odinson, and the four of them are all getting along better and better.

It’s nice to have friends for a change – not that Sif hasn’t always been there, nearly as long as Loki can remember, but now it’s more like they’re double-dating and less like she’s one of his babysitters - and to be living here.

In fact, everything is going _so_ well that he can’t shake the nagging feeling that something is about to go wrong. Loki has long had a sixth sense about impending doom, which is a good part of why he’s still alive after so much time on the streets, and he’s certain danger is lurking so close he can practically fucking taste it.

He doesn’t tell anyone, not even Thor, because no one believes him when he _gets like this_ anyway. Just the same he knows (with a sinking feelings that is far, far too close to certainty) that it’s coming.

And so when the doorbell sounds, at a time of day – night, actually – that no one ever visits, he’s not the least bit surprised that _trouble’s here_.

Okay, maybe that’s exaggerating. Maybe. He still knows something’s wrong, even as he’s scrambling up off the sofa to answer their door.

"I'll get it," he tells Thor, because there’s no reason to expose his brother to said _trouble_. On his way across the living room Loki pulls his pants up enough that he’s legal, if not decent; if this is the police, or someone coming to take him away, it won’t do to be standing in the doorway with his dick showing. And if it’s someone who might _like_ catching him that way, all the more reason not to give away a gratis eyeful. He rubs a hand over his bare chest, wishing for the first time in a long time that he’d bothered to pull on a t-shirt.

Just as he gets to the door, the doorbell rings again. Twice. Apparently their visitor is someone doesn’t like taking no for an answer. The joy. Everything about this feels _off_ , so Loki opts for silently sliding the safety chain into place. “Hello,” he says as he leans forward slightly to peer through the opening-.

- _Holy fucking shit._

He’d thought he was ready for whatever was coming. Nope, not so much.

Odin - _fucking Odin, and in what parallel universe did this somehow come to pass??_ \- glares at him from just outside the door. 

Loki squints and makes himself grin, relieved for what may be the first time in his entire life that he’s had an awful lot of experience _dealing with this sort of shit_. It’s not like he doesn’t know what’s probably coming, after all. Even so he can feel his own heart pounding.

And sure enough, true to form, Odin can’t bother being civil. "What the _fuck_ is going on here," he barks, his broad, red face only inches from Loki’s.

_Okay, so that’s how it’s going to be. No surprises there._ Loki straightens and brings his left arm – not coincidentally the one that bears the brunt of both his lovesick angst and his madness – up so he can use it to brace himself against the doorframe. "I'm fine, Odin,” he says, false-pleasantly. “Thanks for asking. And how are you," he tacks on, because the person he’s pretending to be just now has nice manners.

The person Odin’s being doesn’t. " _Where_ is your brother," he yells, slamming the door against the chain hard. Loki says a quick prayer to the small god of security systems; he’s really, really not in the mood to get punched in the face tonight.

Amidst all the chaos he doesn’t hear Thor come up behind him. "I'm right here” his brother says - _right here_ \- and Loki jumps before he can stop himself. "To what do we owe the pleasure," Thor continues, as though all this is perfectly normal. Apparently the person _he’s_ pretending to be is mannerly as well. _Courtroom_ , Loki belatedly thinks; his brother has probably had plenty of practice at this sort of thing too, even if the context is rather different.

"I don't have time for any of this shit," Odin asserts, loudly. He looks at Loki again, then back to Thor. "Not from either one of you. Now _where_ is Sif?"

_Sif_ , Loki thinks, lost only briefly before- _oh, right, Sif… Thor’s cover story._ They probably should have discussed how to play this first, but there isn’t time now and Loki’s long since _done_ with certain kinds of lying. "I expect she's _in her apartment,_ ” he tells Odin, still icily polite, “considering the time.” He can feel Thor stiffen behind him, one big hand tightening its grip on his hip. He ignores the warning, if that’s what it even is, and plows on: “If you'd only called ahead we could have pulled together a welcoming com-."

"Shut. The fuck. Up," Odin spits, right up in his face now, and it’s abruptly too much. It crosses a line somewhere inside his head that Loki hadn’t realized was coming up so quickly. As he opens his mouth again, no longer sure what’s going to come out of it, Thor gives him another (gentler) squeeze. Fortunately, maybe, something in his brother’ movement catches Odin’s attention.

"Thor," Odin says - in the same tone of voice he always used right before he _hit;_ Loki can’t help shivering - "where does Sif live?"

"Nearby," Thor says, his own voice surprisingly toneless. "If you have business with her, I can pass your contact information along." 

It’s a ballsy, ballsy move, Loki knows (all too well), even with everything whirling around him. Then again, Odin may well never have _hit_ his brother.

"So you're telling me she doesn't live here." Odin says after a short silence. He takes a half step back and looks them - what little he can see of them through the small opening the chain allows, anyway - both up and down. Slowly.

Loki is surprised to find he’s had just enough time to regain the use of his own mouth, if not his mind along with it. "It would be awfully crowded if she did, don't you think,” he quips. “And I'm reasonably sure her boyfriend would _not_ approve."

It goes over exactly as well as he’d have hoped it would, were he in any shape to be plotting and scheming. "What kind of sick fuck are you," Odin growls, staring him square in the face this time.

"Don't," Thor warns, his face pressed against Loki’s hair.

"How _dare_ you try and tell me what to do," Odin roars, “you perverted cock-sucking liar."

"Beg pardon," Loki hears Thor saying from what feels like the other end of a long, long tunnel. Everything is buzzing and humming. "But I don't recall lying to you." 

Loki is still trying to pick through the wreckage of his own brain when Odin shoves a big hand in between the door and the frame and catches him by the jaw. He sees stars.

"This doesn't look a whole lot like _moving here with Sif_ ," he hears Odin yell; he’s lost to the fact Odin is squeezing hard enough to remind him horribly of-.

"Get your hand off him," Thor snaps, jarring Loki out of his waking nightmare. "Now," his brother demands, hand gripping the edge of the door.

Odin shoves Loki back, hard. It fucking hurts, like it did right after his surgery, enough to completely disorient him. He doesn’t mean to, but Loki can hear himself groan. He brings his hands up, to protect his face as best he can, and closes his eyes.

"Consider this your first and last warning,” he can hear Thor telling Odin from what feels like a long way off. “If you touch him again, I'm calling the police." His brother crowds in front of him, pushing him further away from the door. “And that’s after I break your fucking arm. Is that clear?”

Loki’s glad to have a little distance between himself and Odin’s wordless roar, actually. As much as he can be glad of anything right now. Eyes still closed, he tries to disengage completely… to just let the angry words wash over him.

"For the record, I didn't lie, actually" Thor points out. “I - _we_ \- did move here with Sif. Yes, I let you take that information and draw the wrong conclusions but, hey, that's on you, isn't it? Now,” he goes on in his normal speaking voice, except colder, “once again, to what do we owe the pleasure? As in: _Why exactly are you here?_ Because it's getting rather late, and-."

"And what," Odin asks, not letting Thor finish. "You have _that one's_ low-rent skinny little ass to fuck? I expected more of you."

_Actually, it’s quite a high-rent ass_ , Loki’s friend brain supplies. Any other time he might laugh. He can’t, and doesn’t.

"Well, then," Thor tells Odin as Loki leans against the wall behind his brother and tries to get catch his breath, "I guess we're both disappointed."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor may think otherwise but, in Loki's head, Odin wins.

Loki leans against the wall with his eyes closed, _his_ hand on his _brother’s_ hip this time, and listens quietly as Thor and Odin bicker. With every angry word he can feel himself sinking farther and farther down into the black pit that lurks inside him. Out of range, and out of reach.

"Are you really going to make your own father stand in the hall to talk when he's driven five hours to see you," Odin asks, playing the only card he hasn't already traded.

"You tell me," Thor challenges. "Can you act like a civilized adult? Because otherwise I think you're in luck." He pauses; Loki can feel the big muscles in his back shift as he breathes in, deep and silent. "Since we won't be doing any more talking," Thor goes on when Odin says nothing, "standing or otherwise."

"You really have some nerve," Odin snaps (and Loki smiles to himself because it's _good_ to see his brother hitting someone else where it hurts), "thinking you can order me around like this. _You_ , of all people.”

Thor reaches behind himself, to where Loki's hand rests, and weaves his big, hot fingers in amongst Loki's chilly, trembling ones. "My house, my rules," he reminds Odin, squeezing Loki's hand gently. "I'm not ordering anyone around. I'm giving you a _choice_ ," he reiterates. "It's wholly up to you whether or not you opt to take it."

Odin hisses. Loki opens his eyes quickly, only to catch the man – he’s no father to Loki - craning around Thor to stare at him. "Don't you have someplace you should be," Odin asks, "Besides hiding your cowardly little faggot self behind your brother?"

"Loki lives here," Thor points out before Loki has a chance to comment. "This is his home. Look," he continues. He sounds calm enough, except Loki can feel the sheer power rolling off him. It's hard to fathom how someone with half a brain could not be terrified of him, but Odin doesn’t seem to be backing away. "It's getting late,” Thor points out. “I'm tired; I'm sure Loki's tired." He turns to look over his shoulder, sideways; Loki nods. "And we have places we should be in the morning. So?"

With a dull scuffing thud Odin blocks the door. "I'll do my best to be civil," he offers. "That is, I will providing _that_ goes and puts a shirt on."

"You're not off to the best of starts, honestly," Thor reproaches, shifting to put more weight against the door.

"It's fine," Loki says. It isn't, but he could use a couple of minutes to get his shit back together anyway. He stretches around, never breaking eye contact with Odin, and plants a decidedly unbrotherly kiss on Thor's cheek. "Let him in," he suggests. If nothing else they can have their little scene in private and stand far less chance of getting themselves evicted. "I'll go change."

~

Loki walks - struts, really, catwalk-style, even though it’s _hard_ to walk like he owns the place when he feels this much like curling up and dying – somewhere along the line he’s gotten so _soft_ , so out-out-of-practice at this sort of self-preservation, that it’s downright fucking embarrassing - slowly down the hall to their bedroom.

It takes a lot (more than it ought to out of him) to hold himself together. It’s suffocating, like every last bit of oxygen is gone from the apartment. Like the very universe itself is crushing his chest and grinding his bones to powder.

He closes the door behind himself - quietly, _normally_ , because he is _not_ showing Odin what this little charade is costing him - and leans against it, gasping.

None of which helps.

_Calm the fuck down_ , Loki orders himself. _You've been nothing but a piece of meat before; no doubt you'll be no more than one again._.

A few more gulps of air and the room stops spinning.

_Meat_.

Fine. If Odin is dead set on making this horribly awkward, Loki knows he can meet the old asshole more than halfway.

He digs into the far end of his side of the closet, into the clothes he doesn't really _hide_ but is careful not to throw in his brother's face either. The things he would club in, if he still clubbed. The things he wears when he’s home alone and needs to transport himself to another place, now that he’s without the help of drugs or- or the business end of a razor.

The outfit Loki selects is little less blatantly _female_ than the shit Malekith used to have him out there working in – a pair of full-length, skin-tight leather pants, the kind you have to carefully powder as though they were fetishwear, and chunky-soled motorcycle boots dripping with chains and buckles, rather than booty shorts and stripper heels – but he suspects that particular subtlety will be completely lost on Odin.

Loki works the greenish-black pants up over his legs. They sit low on his hips and leave nothing to the imagination. Nothing. He steps into a pair of boots that are almost the same color. This particular pair sports heavy gold buckles and gold brackets at the back that call to mind spurs.

A skin-tight black t-shirt isn’t bad, but – wait, wait! – a loose, whisper-thin gold mesh tank is just that much better. Loki pivots in front of the mirror, front to back to front again. Perfect. He feels better, too, in a jittery post-apocalyptic sort of way.

He smudges on a little eyeliner and blows himself a kiss in the mirror. Take that, Odin, you motherfucker.

When he walks back down the hallway, he doesn’t have to fake it.

~

"May I have a drink," Loki catches Odin right in the midst of asking. The look on Odin’s face is worth a million little deaths.

Thor whips around to look at him. The expression on his brother’s face is (utterly differently, but at least) equally worth it. Thor’s sharp smile is full of promise, like Loki’s going to pay for this later. In a good way.

He can do this.

Odin looks at Thor and clears his throat, loudly. "Nothing stronger?"

Thor snorts. "We aren't drinking these days," he tells Odin. "Can I get you something?"

“Ginger ale,” Odin says, like it’s a huge fucking sacrifice. He takes what Thor offers, though, and only makes a small face when he tastes it.

~

Loki flops down on the sofa and lets his legs fall open. Way, way open. He’s actually a little surprised when Thor sits down next to him, as though all of this is perfectly ordinary; surprised enough that he can ignore the persistent buzzing in his own head a little longer.

“So,” Thor says to Odin, one warm hand on Loki’s thigh and the other one circling like an imaginary bike pedal, “you wanted to talk? “Talk.”

Odin takes a big drink of ginger ale. “I only want you to come back home,” he tells Thor, “and not throw your life away in this backwater with- with this worthless piece of shit. I can’t-,” he says, and then stops to really look at Loki. “You look like a streetwalker,” he spits.

“Fancy that,” Loki says.

“This is my home,” Thor says, cutting them both off. “My friends are here; my life is here. I’m not going anywhere.” His hand closes just above Loki’s knee. It’s a loving gesture, not a painful one.

Loki makes himself focus. He _can_ do this.

“He must be pretty damned good with that dirty little mouth of his,” Odin points out, “if you’re willing to give everything you ever had away for it. I told your mother,” he adds – and, in the tiny window of opportunity before the world implodes, Loki abruptly realizes exactly who he has to thank for how skillfully he himself has learned to play dirty – “I should have left the little wretch for dead from the very beginning.”

A dozen _somethings_ click into place in Loki’s head, with sharp twang after sharp twang like a dozen piano wires snapping.

_Holy fucking fuck._ All at once he gets it. He does.

Because there it all is, laid right out before them. Odin knows he’s a monster. Knew it. Has _always_ known it.

Odin isn’t trying to _hurt_ Thor; he’s trying to _save_ him.

Loki can’t do it after all.

“Don’t,” he begs, helpless, as Thor roars to life. His brother rips the glass out of the old man’s hand and Loki cringes. “That’s it,” Thor growls. “We’re done here. Now get the fuck out of my house before I-.”

“Stop, baby!” Loki pleads, doing his best to Thor’s arm and pull his brother backwards. It’s not Odin’s _fault_. It isn’t. Odin is just trying to protect his precious son from the monster.

“Don’t get your panties in a bunch, you little whore,” Odin snarls, getting to his feet. “Your brother is right. We’re done here.”

Loki lets Thor’s momentum carry him up off the sofa. It’s not enough to get him all the way to standing, though, and he collapses back in a heap when his brother pulls free. The door slams. The last thing Loki manages to think before succumbing to the roaring between his own ears? _Oh, fuck, Odin has left Thor here all alone. ___


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki overthinks it, until he stops thinking it at all.
> 
> In which Odin comes dangerously close to winning...

His brain is- shot. Fried. Loki has no idea what to- how to- he can't even begin to process everything that's just happened.

Odin was here, Odin is gone. The apartment still reverberates with his yells, not to mention the way he’d slammed the door as he’d taken his leave of them.

But Odin was here. _Here_ , in this place. And Odin was _right_. He knew. He _knows_.

Loki shivers, hard, enough to make his bones ache with it.

Odin knows everything; forced to face it, Loki has to admit he does, too: He’s a monster. And this place, this life they’ve made? He's laid a complex trap for his brother and ensnared Thor in it, as simply and as heartlessly as catching a slug in a shallow saucer of beer. That he’d somehow managed to convince himself this was all innocent, and that he hadn't _meant anything wrong by it_ , only makes the whole business all the more laughable.

Because there's really no denying it: He has a gift (a curse, one of many). Sex with him is clearly a powerful lure, one others have paid good money to sample. A lure it seems his brother would follow (would carry?) anywhere. And Loki can’t even in good faith claim he's giving these precious spoils away for free, not now that Odin has peeled back the veil and left him unable to hide from his own actions.

No, he’s still whoring himself out… these days it’s just for quality day treatment and a soft bed. Good food. A degree of personal safety he hasn't earned and doesn't warrant.

In return, what? What has _he_ given? In return Loki has cost Thor his job and his family standing. Most of his friends. His law license. And all for a good fuck he could have gotten anywhere.

Okay, not anywhere. But it’s not like Loki’s the only fuck there is. There’s plenty to go around.

For a whole lot _cheaper_.

He spreads his fingers, one hand and then the other, to display his glossy polished nails against the deep green of his skintight pants. Truth be told it might be quite a challenge to find someone – some _thing_ \- a whole lot _trashier_.

"You okay, baby?"

Loki starts, coming up out of his own shit a little (very little) as he realizes his brother is speaking. Softly. From halfway across the room, like he’s fragile. Or dangerous.

"Loki?"

Thor’s voice is strained; worrying, then. "Mm," Loki hums, because it's what's expected of him. He has no idea what else to do.

"Well," his brother says after a pause that borders on awkward. "Um. I really like those pants," Thor tells him, warm and sincere. "They look fantastic on you."

Right, the sex. Loki’s selling point. His end of the (literal) fucking bargain. "I look like a whore," he points out, out of fairness. He shouldn’t tilt his end of the game board anymore. His brother deserves to know where things really stand. "You heard the man."

"No," Thor protests. "You look like my _lover_ , in perfect green leather pants."

_Well, yes, brother; that is the game we play._ "Same difference," Loki reminds Thor, because a deal is a deal. Honor among thieves. Among killers, among hookers. "Same shit, different day."

"Odin's managed to be wrong about an awful lot," Thor disagrees, taking about half a step closer. His hands come up, like he has no idea what to do next either. "More than he's right about, really."

"And you're sure about that," Loki- asks. Tells, really. Thor needs to hide from the truth in order to stomach it. While he’s certainly familiar with that particular approach, Loki is done bothering.

"Perfectly sure," Thor says, confidently. "Dead. Fucking. Certain."

_Keep telling yourself that, brother, if it's what lets you sleep at night._

~

Loki’s on the clock now. He’s on it all the time, come to think of it, which he can't _not_ do anymore thanks to Odin's little reminder. Consequently he doesn't pull back when his brother closes the remaining distance between them.

And he doesn’t resist as Thor pulls him to his feet, carefully strips off the thin tank, and then uses both hands to thoroughly worship the pants he’s wearing. 

He even stays right where he is, calm-seeming and pliant, as Thor kneels to stroke the leather with warm hands from hips to ankles and then slowly, slowly back again. Okay, yes, Loki might be a little shocked (it’s not the first time this has happened - every now and then a client does want to be _used;_ to pretend to bottom – but this is _Thor_ ) when his brother works his dick free of the tight confines of his pants and starts sucking. But it’s nothing he can’t handle.

Shock is an easy enough thing to work past, easier by far than disgust and agony. Loki simply checks out completely, mind gone back to some of those vague happier times he can never be quite sure actually existed.

~

Even (especially?) with his mind elsewhere Loki's body knows this game inside and out. Like the back of his own hand, or the palm, as it were. He tangles his fingers in Thor's hair, hard enough for play but far too gently to do any damage. He keeps his thrusts shallow; Thor doesn't like to be choked. He moans softly, enough to seem interested without crossing over into clearly faking. And he's _not_ faking, not that anyone can tell. He comes in Thor's mouth just like he's supposed to.

And then he doesn't shift away, because he hasn't been granted permission. Of course Thor isn't just any john and maybe he doesn't get it that even a topping whore is only _playing_ at topping, but Loki isn't taking any chances. Not today. Not until he can figure out how to fix things for his brother by- by extricating himself from the whole mess somehow.

Thor struggles clumsily to his feet, grabbing at Loki with one hand to steady himself and wiping his mouth with the back of the other.

Okay, Loki knows how _this_ part plays out, too; he shakes gently but purposefully free of his brother's clutches and drops to his own knees. It’s his turn, his job to return the favor. Except he doesn't have Thor's hang-ups (he might call them _preferences_ if he was feeling generous; right now he's feeling nothing whatsoever, though, save for burdened with a nagging panicky fear that he's overstayed his welcome and needs to be gone from this place before disaster can yet again overtake him) and is able do the job properly.

Which he of course does. And then some. Bad whores don't earn a living.

Loki watches as Thor watches him work for a while. His brother’s face looks- sad, maybe? Frightened? Like Thor is searching for a connection, something that might make their time together more than a simple business transaction?

Well, nothing is ever _simple_ , but Thor isn’t going to find any deep truths written across Loki’s face. He hasn't got any comfort left to give; all he has left to barter tonight is the hollowed-out shell of his own body.

Even when Thor tires of watching, Loki stares up at him. He doesn’t want to be caught slacking, with his eyes shut and his expression unschooled. And it’s a good thing he does stay vigilant because, when the time comes and he pulls off to let his brother splatter all over his face, Loki once again catches Thor looking.

Except the expression on Thor’s face is _all wrong_ , and Loki- he fails.

Shuts all the way down. Completely.

He doesn’t react when his brother kneels before him and wraps him in a tight embrace; he just leans against Thor’s big chest, limp and paralyzed, while his brother murmurs his name over and over.

Like a prayer, like a mantra.

Loki says nothing and does nothing for a long, long time. Not even when Thor’s tears run hot down his face does he react, let alone move. If those tears mix with his own, and maybe they do, Loki is too far gone to feel it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What goes sideways must come back.
> 
>  
> 
> **WARNING:** self-injury. It's not major, but the thought process leading up to it is not pretty... and neither is some of the aftermath.

It's annoyingly, albeit understandably, difficult to find something suitably sharp at day treatment. The sense of purpose hunting for a tool gives him must be enough to mask his inner turmoil from the staff, though, as he goes about his business largely unmolested. In fact, only one person even stops him to ask "can I help you" in that very specific tone of voice that invariably means _don't think I'm not on to you_.

“I’m all set, thanks,” Loki says brightly. “Just took a wrong turn coming out of the library.” And then he does the smart thing and turns around.

In the end he gives up empty-handed.

Okay, not quite. He does give up searching, though, and retreats to one of the bathrooms with the disposable razor he'd picked up on the way in today. It’s from the convenience store around the corner (scooped up along with a travel-sized tube of toothpaste and a little thing of shaving cream, so his obvious purchase wouldn't look so obvious), and he has it jammed in his pants pocket.

~

He's better at dissecting the things now, without cutting his fingers. Loki gives himself a moment to savor the irony that is _a suicidal cutter hating accidentally-sliced-open fingertips_ , but he's careful not to laugh. This bathroom is a good-sized multi-seater, with six urinals and three stalls, and you never do know when you might find yourself shitting (not to mention cutting) next to a staff member. It’s not the place to blow your cover by sounding damningly unhinged.

Once he gets the cheap plastic contraption apart, he holds the blade for several minutes and studies his arm.

When he can't make up his mind what he wants to do, Loki takes it as a sign and - shirtsleeve shoved up out of the way since, if he’s not going to be dying today after all, he needs a way to hide the evidence - cuts just above his left elbow. He's less than half an inch from the big veins that would make this (not fatal, really, but) a whole lot more emphatic, but he cuts where he cuts and he leaves it that way. There's plenty of time to do something worse later, if a different mood hits him.

Some pill or another amidst the crap he’s taking _to make him less obviously fucked up_ blunts the jagged little high cutting once gave him. Instead he's just stuck with the considerable pain. 

That, and a powerfully nauseating wave of fear he really hadn't been expecting. He tries resting his forehead against the cool, heavy marble divider separating his stall from the one next door.

Even then, with one hand clamped over his bleeding arm and his eyes squeezed tight shut, he feels everything tilt and weave.

It’s awful.

~

Ready or not, Loki knows he can only stay in the shitter so long before he's found out. That, and - assuming his sense of time is reasonably reliable today, which is pretty much a crap shoot (no pun intended, honest – he’s too fucking sick now to be unfunny) - he has to be running out of wiggle room before DBT starts.

He mops up the worst of the blood with a fresh handful of toilet paper. When he straightens up to flush the toilet, his head spins again; this time, he’s unable to avoid mostly-dry-heaving into the bloody water.

Thankfully, no one comes in.

~

A few minutes later, face and mouth rinsed, arm padded beneath his shirt, and stomach still rolling a little dangerously, Loki saunters out into the hallway and heads for the DBT classroom. Cool, collected. Not a care in the fucking world.

~

"I'd like to see you in the hall for a moment," one of the monitors tells Loki about ten minutes into the lesson.

_You can do this_ , he reminds himself. They can't possibly know. "Sure," he tells her faux-calmly, standing as smoothly as he can and trailing her out into the corridor. He puts on a nice, bland smile. "Can I help you?"

"Are you okay," she asks straight away, without any preamble. "You don't look okay."

He should reassure her. He should stop whatever shit he’s pulling before it takes on a life of his own and plows him right under.

Instead, because he can pretty dumb for someone so smart sometimes, Loki spins away from the monitor and runs.

~

It's a stupid, stupid maneuver, one that gets him tackled to the fancy terrazzo flooring not more than three short halls away.

In for a penny, in for a pound: It takes all four guards to pin him down and keep him mostly still.

~

Loki spits at the ambulance people and earns himself a gross, hot blue mask over both nose and mouth. It sucks, but it doesn't put a dent in his screaming.

~

"Do you think you can dial this back a little," the very calm, unflappable caregiver – patient care tech or doctor, they all look the same in their blue scrubs and it’s not like he gives a flying fuck anyway - asks as Loki shrieks and thrashes against his restraints. The hospital bed shifts and rattles. "Because I think you can,” the man says just loudly enough to carry past the noise. “Plus, if you can't, I'm going to have to sedate you… and I don't think you want that. Do you?"

The question catches Loki by surprise and he actually _does_ quiet down, long enough that it would be embarrassing to subsequently pretend he couldn't. He nods and lets himself go limp.

Everything hurts now. Awesome.

"Thirsty," he rasps, when the caregiver says nothing.

"I bet you are," the guy says. "And if you can just lie still long enough for us to draw some blood, I'll get you something. Water," he adds as Loki frowns at him suspiciously. "In a sealed bottle, even." He pats not Loki, but the bedrail. "I'm not here to trick you."

Loki weighs his options as best he can: limited, at best. Ultimately he nods again and then looks away.

~

He lies patiently (after a fashion) still as a girl only barely old enough to work here, if her reedy little voice is any guide, draws four vials – yes four; he counts the shifting and jostling, even though he is expressly _not watching_ \- from the side he didn't injure. Loki does nothing to help, even though she has to struggle to thread her equipment around the various straps and buckles and deal with the dead weight of his whole arm. But he cooperates, and that's all they said they wanted.

And sure enough, he gets water when she’s packed up and gone. “Hi,” the guy says as Loki’s guzzling. “I’m Phil, the Physician Assistant overseeing your care. We didn’t get to introduce ourselves properly earlier.”

“I’m Loki,” Loki is a little shocked to find himself saying. His voice is a scratchy wreck. “I’m having a shit week,” he adds, because _that’s_ not obvious or anything. He looks straight at Phil this time. He doesn’t smile.

Phil nods. _He_ doesn’t smile either. “Yeah,” he says instead, “I see that.”

~

The questions feel interminable, even after Loki (rolls his eyes, but) opens his mouth and swallows what he’s told to swallow. By the time someone finally comes in and interrupts Phil, with a tap on the shoulder and a quick gesture, he feels like he’s been here a lifetime.

~

“Your partner is just outside,” Phil tells Loki when he comes back in from the hallway. “If you’re up to it,” he goes on as Loki tries to cover a massive flinch with an abortive attempt at _stretching, restraints edition_ , “I think he would find seeing you very reassuring.”

Everything Loki did last night, all the pretending(?) he’s the enemy and Thor- doesn’t matter, is completely out of his reach presently. “I’d like to see him,” he admits, even though it’s the worst sort of caving.

Phil smiles a real smile. “Just for a minute,” he reminds Loki. “He can’t stay in here until we’re done evaluating you.”

_But he increases my market value_ , Loki thinks and wisely doesn’t say. Maybe it’s not _all_ out of his reach.

~

Thor clears his throat. “Hi, baby,” he says softly. Unlike Phil, he bravely reaches right over the side of the bed and touches the back of Loki’s hand. His fingers are warm and solid and Loki abruptly wants them _everywhere_.

He wants to go home. He _has_ to go home. “I’m sorry,” he says after a rough cough of his own. “I guess I wasn’t okay after all,” he tacks on, because Thor deserves to hear some sort of explanation. Some sort of confession.

“Time’s up,” Phil tells them, his head poking in through a gap in the curtain. “Thor, will you excuse us?”

Loki wants Thor to say no – to cause a scene and smash the place, just to stay with him – but of course that isn’t what happens. His brother just squeezes his hand and ducks out, with a quick apology to Phil and a goodbye for him that’s quicker still.

As Phil resumes the _interrogation_ , the one he has to gracefully navigate in order to go home, Loki tries to convince himself this – every bit of it – is all for the best.

He isn’t sure it’s working.

He isn’t sure that matters.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone lives after all.

"Hi," Loki says to the social worker - at least that's what her name tag says she is, and she’s yet to give him reason to doubt it - who's joined Phil at his bedside. He's run out of whatever manic energy had been fueling him earlier and his ass is just plain dragging now.

His arm is throbbing and he still aches pretty much everywhere. Only more so.

"You wanted to talk to me?" He feels mentally blurry from whatever they'd given him earlier, but he's reasonably certain she's not here just for the thrill of gazing at his limp, unhappy self. Especially in this awful fucking gown.

On another day the bright pink would be hilarious. Or insulting. Both, maybe. Today, though, he feels like a well-chewed chunk of neon-pink bubblegum and it's just making his head hurt.

She nods. "I spoke with Dr. Riley," she skips past the pointless small talk to tell him, and suddenly he doesn't have to fight to look interested. "Well, Phil and I both did. She's okay with you going home this evening... as long as you can control yourself here, and there's going to be someone at home to watch you."

_Oh thanks be to baby jebus and all the little dead children everywhere._ "I can control myself," Loki promises. "Honest. I don't quite know what got into me earlier but I'm pretty sure Phil here has drugged it into submission." He suppresses the urge to grin at Phil, who he hopes is feeling at least a little bit guilty. "And, yes, my partner can keep an eye on me. One of our neighbors can usually help him, too, if he needs her to."

The social worker frowns. "Dr. Riley warned us that you sometimes try to provoke your partner when you want to hurt yourself."

Loki sighs. Loudly. Does that really have to follow him everywhere he goes? "I'm hurting enough for one day," he assures her. "I'm done with it. Seriously."

"Just the same, we'd feel better if you stuck around for a day or two," she tells him, "until we're sure you're okay on your new dosage."

Yeah, no. They'll kill him in here. Which is funny, actually. He focuses on the dull ache in his shoulders and wills himself not to laugh. "I spend weekdays in an intensive outpatient program," he reminds her. Them. "Rest assured they'll ship me right back here if they see anything concerning." _I just put that to the test, after all_ , he doesn't continue, at least partially because it’s literally _just_ dawning on him now, _and it worked flawlessly_.

_Oh._ Fucking hell. The shit that gets into him sometimes.

Loki shuts his eyes briefly, hoping to cover his own far-too-personal reaction. When he opens them again, the garish pink gown seems even worse somehow. "How long do you need to see me behave myself,” he asks quietly, “before I can go home?"

She and Phil exchange a look. "An hour should cover it," Phil says, and she nods.

An hour, he can do. He could use a little nap anyway. Loki blinks at them, suddenly almost painfully sleepy. "Okay. Can you let me loose so I can roll over?" Curling up in a little ball sounds so nice, especially with the fluorescent fixture directly overhead.

Phil and the social worker look at each other once again, longer this time. "Okay," she says at last. "Have you got this, then," she asks Phil, backing subtly away. There’s a story here somewhere, there has to be, but Loki’s not in the mood to dig for it.

"Sure," Phil says, as she parts the curtains and steps out into the hallway. "I believe him."

For that bit of kindness, Loki lies extra-still and lets Phil work the straps free... no wriggling, no tugging, no dramatic hand-flapping or foot-shaking afterwards to make a big show of how much they've hurt him. "I can't leave you here alone," Phil apologizes once Loki's loose. "Not yet, anyway. But feel free to ignore me and sleep if you need to."

Loki yawns. He's an open fucking book today, apparently. "Thanks," he says, instead of sticking a wrench in things, because he really does want to go home. "Wake me up when Thor comes back?"

"After your hour is up," Phil tells him, "never fear; I'll have someone go get him."

~

Phil does Loki one better; he wakes Loki gently first, before sending anyone Thor-hunting. While gives Loki time to look at least half alive before having to face his favorite visitor.

Enough time to pull his hideous gown over his bare ass and sit up, anyway.

~

"Survey says?" Thor is- beaming. Except he also looks like he wants to cry. That, and sleep. Clearly Loki is not the only one feeling a bit drained presently.

"Apparently I am indeed still crazy," Loki confirms – no surprises there - "in case you were harboring any secret doubts. But,” he goes on when Thor doesn’t even crack a smile, “I’m not crazy enough to keep any longer against my will.”

Loki shrugs and – ouch! - immediately regrets it. Next time he has a tantrum, it’s not going to include a phalanx of security guards or a bunch of serious thrashing about while restrained. Maybe next time he will just cry and punch his pillow.

Or just cry, and leave the pillow out of it.

"They would love to have me spend a day or two in their doubtless palatial inpatient unit, they tell me, as they've tweaked my meds and could monitor me best there. However," he adds, because Thor’s starting to look downright horrified and that isn’t what Loki was aiming for at all, "they do assure me the choice is mine."

It’s always tempting to mess with his brother’s head, if for no other reason than to build himself up a little reassurance buffer, but if he’s honest with himself Loki has to admit – and it’s not like he doesn’t have extensive past experience with this sort of experiment - that he doesn’t believe the reactions he causes anyway.

It has to happen naturally, or it might not as well happen at all.

"And," his brother prompts, still worried and close to teary, and maybe it’s okay to mess _just a little_ after all.

Play for sympathy, rather. Because who can’t use a little sympathy?

Loki looks at the floor, then at Thor. "And I would really prefer to go home with you, if you'll have me.” _Ah, yes. Cue the violins for poor, poor pitiful Loki_. “They can monitor my response to the regimen change at the center, tomorrow."

“Whew,” Thor huffs. “Oh god yes,” he tells Loki, “I would very, very much like to have you home. With me. And I will- um- be more considerate of your-," Loki smirks, and whatever Thor was going to say is clearly gone up in smoke. "I'll take better care of you this time."

~

They don’t talk. They don’t even have dinner, really. And they don’t make it to bed, as evidenced by the way Loki wakes up (on his brother, which makes it all okay) the next morning – stiff and sore and groggy – on the sofa.

Just the same, nothing bad happens and Thor still loves him at sunrise.

~

“You look tired,” Keisha tells Loki the minute he walks into the shelter. “You need me to get you some hot cocoa?”

He smiles. He doesn’t mind so much when _she_ reads him. “I’d love some.”

~

Cleaning the cages bugs his arm – they didn’t stitch the cut, probably because he was thrashing around like a- you know; still, the steri-strips pull and the whole area’s swollen and everything about it just feels _off_ somehow – but Loki does it anyway. It’s not even martyrdom, not really. The cats simply shouldn’t have to suffer for his shitty week. Most of them have already suffered plenty, and his whole reason for being here is to help make it all better. So he grits his teeth and pushes through his own (sadly unrewarding) pain.

It’s easier once Thor stops by, though; watching his brother playing with what he very much hopes will still be _their cats_ someday very soon provides just enough of the right kind of distraction.

~

Later, Thor – slippery with butter and tasting deliciously of cheese and onions, because pierogies can cover for a multitude of sins – kisses him slow and sweet on the kitchen island. Perfectly, tenderly, like they have all the time in the world together. And maybe they do.

It’s nothing he plans to think about just now. But maybe sometime he ought to.


End file.
